D’Orsay(1830)[TO FACE PAGE 96
D’Orsay(1830)
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Lady Blessington, the D’Orsays, and Marianne Power remained on for some considerable time in Paris after the death of Lord Blessington, the Revolution of 1830 providing them with some excitement. D’Orsay was always out and about, and though his brother-in-law de Guiche was a well-known legitimist and he himself a Bonapartist, the crowd was quite ready to greet the dandy with good-humoured shouts of “Vivele Comte d’Orsay.” Your crowd ofsans-culottesdearly loves a dandy.
Here is a quite pretty picture by Lady Blessington:—
“6th August.—I walked with Comte d’O(rsay) this evening into the Champs Elysées, and great was the change effected there within the last few days. It looks ruined and desolate, the ground cut up by the pieces of cannon and troops as well as the mobs that have made it a thoroughfare, and many of the trees greatly injured, if not destroyed.
“A crowd was assembled around a man who was reading aloud for their edification a proclamation nailed to one of the trees. We paused for a moment to hear it, when some of the persons, recognising my companion, shouted aloud, ‘Vive le Comte d’Orsay! Vive le Comte d’Orsay!’ and the cry being taken up by the mass, the reader was deserted, the fickle multitude directing all their attention and enthusiasm to the new-comer.”
D’Orsay’s love of the fine arts induced him to make an effort to save the portrait of the Dauphin by Lawrence which hung in the Louvre. To achieve this he sent two of his servants, Brement, formerly a drill-sergeant in the Guards, and Charles, an ex-Hussar; they found the picture, torn to ribbons and the fragments strewn upon the floor.
As another example of his epistolary style we will quote this following from D’Orsay to Landor, dated Paris, 22nd Août, 1830:—
“Je viens de recevoir votre lettre du 10. Il falloit un aussi grand événement pour avoir de vos nouvelles. Le fait est que c’est dans ces grandes circonstances que les gens bien pensant se retrouvent. Vous donner des détails de tout l’héroïsme qui a été déployé dans ces journées mémorables, et difficiles il faudroit un Salluste pour rendre justice, et d’écrire cette plus belle page de l’histoire des temps modernes. On ne sait quoi admirer de plus, de la valeur dans l’action, ou de la modération après la victoire. Paris est tranquille comme la veille d’un jour de fête, it seroit injuste de dire comme le lendemain, car la réaction de la veille donne souvent une apparenceunsettled, tandis qu’ici tout est digne et noble, le grand peuple sent sa puissance. Chaque homme se sent relevé à ses propres yeux, et croiroit manquer à sa nation en commettant le moindre excès. Vous, véritable philosophe, serait heureux de voir ce qu’a pu faire l’éducation en 40 années; voir ce peuple après, ou à l’époque où La Fayette le commanda pour la première fois, est bien différent; en 1790—l’accouchement laborieux de la liberté eut des suites funestes, maintenant l’on peut dire que la mère et l’enfant se portent bien. Notre présent Roi est le premier citoyen de son pays, il sent bien que les Rois sont faits pour les peuples, et non les peuples pour les Rois. Si Charles Dix eut pensé de même s’il eut été moins Jésuite, nous aurions encore cette Race Capétienne. Ainsi comme il n’y a aucun moyen curatif connu pour guérir de cette maladie, il est encore très heureuxqu’il ait donné l’excuse légale pour qu’on renvoye.… La Comtesse et Lady B. ont été d’un courage sublime, elles se portent bien.… Adieu, pour le moment. Votre très affectionné,“D’Orsay.”
“Je viens de recevoir votre lettre du 10. Il falloit un aussi grand événement pour avoir de vos nouvelles. Le fait est que c’est dans ces grandes circonstances que les gens bien pensant se retrouvent. Vous donner des détails de tout l’héroïsme qui a été déployé dans ces journées mémorables, et difficiles il faudroit un Salluste pour rendre justice, et d’écrire cette plus belle page de l’histoire des temps modernes. On ne sait quoi admirer de plus, de la valeur dans l’action, ou de la modération après la victoire. Paris est tranquille comme la veille d’un jour de fête, it seroit injuste de dire comme le lendemain, car la réaction de la veille donne souvent une apparenceunsettled, tandis qu’ici tout est digne et noble, le grand peuple sent sa puissance. Chaque homme se sent relevé à ses propres yeux, et croiroit manquer à sa nation en commettant le moindre excès. Vous, véritable philosophe, serait heureux de voir ce qu’a pu faire l’éducation en 40 années; voir ce peuple après, ou à l’époque où La Fayette le commanda pour la première fois, est bien différent; en 1790—l’accouchement laborieux de la liberté eut des suites funestes, maintenant l’on peut dire que la mère et l’enfant se portent bien. Notre présent Roi est le premier citoyen de son pays, il sent bien que les Rois sont faits pour les peuples, et non les peuples pour les Rois. Si Charles Dix eut pensé de même s’il eut été moins Jésuite, nous aurions encore cette Race Capétienne. Ainsi comme il n’y a aucun moyen curatif connu pour guérir de cette maladie, il est encore très heureuxqu’il ait donné l’excuse légale pour qu’on renvoye.… La Comtesse et Lady B. ont été d’un courage sublime, elles se portent bien.… Adieu, pour le moment. Votre très affectionné,
“D’Orsay.”
Before leaving Paris for London we must quote from Madden a passage which proves conclusively that not every Irishman has a saving sense of humour. “Shortly before the death of Count d’Orsay’s mother,” he writes, “who entertained feelings of strong attachment for Lady Blessington, the former had spoken with great earnestness of her apprehensions for her son, on account of his tendency to extravagance, and of her desire that Lady Blessington would advise and counsel him, and do her utmost to counteract those propensities which had already been attended with embarrassments, and had occasioned her great fears for his welfare. The promise that was given on that occasion was often alluded to by Lady Blessington, and after her death, by Count d’Orsay.”
Such a solemn undertaking must of course be carried out by an honourable woman, so when the Paris establishment was broken up by Lady Blessington, Count and Countess d’Orsay followed in her train, so that they might be near by to receive her counsel and advice.
The London in which D’Orsay was destined to spend the majority of his remaining years, and of which he became so distinguished an ornament is far away from modern London, farther away from us, in fact, in manners, customs and appearance than it was from the metropolis of the England of Queen Elizabeth. Astounding is the change that has come about since the year 1830; the advent of steam and electricity, the stupendous increase of wealth, the extension of education if not of culture, wrought a revolution during the nineteenth century. The first half of that century has rightly been described as “cruel, unlovely, but abounding in vital force.” London was then a city very dull to look upon, very dirty, very dismal; hackney coaches were the chief means of locomotion for those who could not afford to keep their own chariot, and were rumbling, lumbering, bumpy vehicles, whose drivers were dubbed jarvies. Fast young men were beginning to sport a cabriolet or cab; omnibuses were of the future. “Bobbies” had only come into being recently, taking the place of the watchmen and Bow Street runners, who hitherto had taken charge of the public morals. Debtors were treated worse than we now treat criminals;gaming-houses were in abundance, and to their proprietors profitable institutions. Drinking shops were open to any hour of the night, and drinking to excess was only gradually ceasing to be a gentlemanly, even a lordly, diversion; clubs in our modern sense of the word were comparatively few, coffee-houses, chop-houses, and taverns occupying their place to some extent. Restaurants and fashionable hotels were not, and ladies dined at home when their husbands disported themselves abroad. Prize-fighting was in its heyday; duelling was the fashion.
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10 St James’s Square
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To this London, which, however, was not so dull as it looked, D’Orsay came in November 1830, taking up his residence with Lady Blessington and his wife in St James’ Square. But Lady Blessington soon found that her jointure of £2000 a year could not by any stretching meet the expenses of such an establishment, and that a removal to cheaper quarters was compulsory. D’Orsay and his wife took furnished lodgings in Curzon Street, but later on joined Lady Blessington in the house in Seamore Place, which she had rented from Lord Mountford and furnished with an extravagance worthy of an ill-educated millionaire. As for example, let us take a peep into the library—Lady Blessington was very literary—which looked out upon Hyde Park; the ceiling was arched and from it hung a lamp of splendour; there were enamelled tables crowded with costly trinkets and knick-knacks; the walls were lined with a medley of mirrors and book-cases, withas chief adornment Lawrence’s delightful portrait of the mistress of the house, now in the Wallace Collection. The dining-room was octagonal, and environed by mirrors; it was an age of mirrors and cut glass.
Joseph Jekyll writes on June 20th, 1831: “Nostra senora, of Blessington, has a house ofbijouxin Seymour (sic) Place. Le Comte d’Orsay, an Antinous of beauty and an exquisite of Paris, married the rich daughter of Lord Blessington, and they live here withla belle mère.” And on 18th July:—“The Countess of Blessington gave a dinner to us on Friday. Lord Wilton, General Phipps, Le Comte d’Orsay, and myself—Cuisine de Paris exquise. The pretty melancholy Comtesse glided in for a few minutes, and then left us to nurse her influenza. The Misses Berry tell me they have dined with the Speaker and wife, who have thrown my Blessington overboard.[6]The English at Naples called my friend the Countess of Cursington.”
In January of the next year Jekyll was again present at a dinner in Seamore Place, other guests being George Colman, James Smith, Rogers and Campbell; “There was wit, fun, epigram, and raillery enough to supply fifty county members for a twelvemonth.Miladihas doffed her widow’s weeds, and was almost in pristine beauty. Her house is abijou, or, as Sir W. Curtis’ lady said, ‘a perfect bougie.’”
At Seamore Place Lady Blessington, withD’Orsay as ally and master of the ceremonies, gathered around her many of the most interesting and distinguished men of the time—statesmen, soldiers, writers, painters, musicians, actors, and many gay butterflies of fashion.
But the triple alliance was soon reduced to a dual, Lady Harriet leaving Seamore Place, her husband and her stepmother—who doubtless had given her much good counsel and advice—in August, 1831. It was not, however, until February, 1838, that a formal deed of separation was executed. This diminution of the number of the household in nowise damped the gaiety of the two who were left behind, indeed the presence of the child-wife must often have been a wet-blanket. As far as D’Orsay was concerned, she had fulfilled her fate by supplying him with an income, which he speedily overspent and frittered away. It is surely a blot upon our social economy that such a man should have been driven to such a course in order to secure the means of living. There ought to be a young-age pension for dandies, and their debts ought to be paid by the State, thus leaving them free to do their duty without harassing cares as to ways and means. A dandy of the first water is a public benefactor and as such should be subsidised.
Nathaniel Parker Willis, an American journalist and verse writer, who wrote much that is now little read, has given accounts of various visits paid by him to Lady Blessington and D’Orsay, to the mistress and to her master,at Seamore Place, and, as was the case with others who went there, apparently accepted the Count’s constant presence as quite natural. In truth, why should he not frequent the house of his adorable stepmother-in-law? Even when he was not chaperoned by his wife?
On the occasion of his first call Willis found Lady Blessington reclining on a yellow satin sofa, book in hand, her bejewelled fingers blazing with diamonds. He tells us that he judged her ladyship to be on the sunny side of thirty, being more than ten years out in his surmise, which proves that either the lady was extremely well preserved or the visitor too dazzled by her beauty or her diamonds to be in full possession of his powers of observation. But then, what man could be so ungallant as to guess any pretty woman’s age at more than thirty?
She was dressed in blue satin, which against the yellow of the couch must have produced an hysterically Whistlerian fantasia. Willis describes her features as regular and her mouth as expressive of unsuspecting good-humour; her voice now sad, now merry, and always melodious.
To them enter D’Orsay in all his splendour, to whom the fascinated Willis was presented.
Thereon followed tea and polite conversation, the talk very naturally turning upon America and the Americans, Lady Blessington being anxious to learn in what esteem such writers as the young Disraeli and Bulwer were held in the States.
“If you will come to-morrow night,” she said, “you will see Bulwer. I am delighted that he ispopular in America. He is envied and abused—for nothing, I believe, except for the superiority of his genius, and the brilliant literary success it commands; and knowing this, he chooses to assume a pride which is only the armour of a sensitive mind afraid of a wound. He is to his friends the most frank and noble creature in the world, and open to boyishness with those whom he thinks understand and value him. He has a brother, Henry,[7]who is also very clever in a different vein, and is just now publishing a book on the present condition of France.[8]Do they like the D’Israelis in America?”
Willis replied that theCuriosities of Literature,Vivian GreyandContarini Flemingwere much appreciated.
To which Lady Blessington graciously responded:
“I am pleased at that, for I like them both. D’Israeli the elder came here with his son the other night. It would have delighted you to see the old man’s pride in him, and the son’s respect and affection for his father. D’Israeli the elder lives in the country, about twenty miles from town; seldom comes up to London, and leads a life of learned leisure, each day hoarding up and dispensing forth treasures of literature. He is courtly, yet urbane, and impresses one at once with confidence in his goodness. In his manners, D’Israeli the younger is quite his own character of ‘Vivian Grey’; full of genius and eloquence,with extreme good-nature, and a perfect frankness of character.”
After some further desultory chat, Willis asked Lady Blessington if she knew many Americans, to which the reply was—
“Not in London, but a great many abroad. I was with Lord Blessington in his yacht at Naples when the American fleet was lying there … and we were constantly on board your ships. I knew Commodore Creighton and Captain Deacon extremely well, and liked them particularly. They were with us frequently of an evening on board the yacht or the frigate, and I remember very well the bands playing always ‘God save the King’ as we went up the side. Count d’Orsay here, who spoke very little English at the time, had a great passion for ‘Yankee Doodle,’ and it was always played at his request.”
Thereupon D’Orsay, in his pleasant, broken English, inquired after several of the officers, who, however, it turned out were not known to Willis. The conversation afterward turned upon Byron, and Willis asked Lady Blessington if she knew the Countess Guiccioli.
“Yes, very well. We were at Genoa when they were living there, but we never saw her. It was at Rome, in 1828, that I first knew her, having formed her acquaintance at Count Funchal’s, the Portuguese Ambassador.”
In the evening Willis availed himself of the invitation he had received, finding Lady Blessington now in the drawing-room, with some half dozen or so of men in attendance. Amongthese was James Smith, an intimate of D’Orsay’s, in whose gaiety andsavoir-fairehe delighted. A pleasant story is this of later days, when Smith met the Countess Guiccioli at Gore House. After dinner these two chatted confidentially for the remainder of the evening, chiefly of their reminiscences of Byron, Leigh Hunt and Shelley. D’Orsay saw Smith home to his residence in Craven Street, and as he parted with him, asked—
“What was all that Madame Guiccioli was saying to you just now?”
“She was telling me her apartments are in the Rue de Rivoli, and that if I visited the French capital she hoped I would not forget her address.”
“What! It took all that time to say that? Ah! Smeeth, you old humbug! That won’t do!”
James Smith, who, with his brother Horace, was the author of theRejected Addresses, was born in 1775.[9]He was a wit in talk and in prose as well as on paper and in verse. Here are some lines he addressed to Lady Blessington when she moved westward to Gore House—
“You who erst, in festive legions,Sought inMay Fair,SeamorePlace,Henceforth in more westward regionsSeek its ornament and grace.“Would yousee moretaste and splendour,Mark the notice I rehearse—Now at Kensington attend her—Farther on, youmay fareworse.”
“You who erst, in festive legions,Sought inMay Fair,SeamorePlace,Henceforth in more westward regionsSeek its ornament and grace.“Would yousee moretaste and splendour,Mark the notice I rehearse—Now at Kensington attend her—Farther on, youmay fareworse.”
“You who erst, in festive legions,Sought inMay Fair,SeamorePlace,Henceforth in more westward regionsSeek its ornament and grace.
“You who erst, in festive legions,
Sought inMay Fair,SeamorePlace,
Henceforth in more westward regions
Seek its ornament and grace.
“Would yousee moretaste and splendour,Mark the notice I rehearse—Now at Kensington attend her—Farther on, youmay fareworse.”
“Would yousee moretaste and splendour,
Mark the notice I rehearse—
Now at Kensington attend her—
Farther on, youmay fareworse.”
Gout and rheumatism afflicted him sorely in his latter years, though his face retained its hale good looks. At Seamore Place—and on similar occasions—he was compelled to move about with the aid of a crutch, or in a wheel-chair, which he could manœuvre himself, his feet sometimes encased in india-rubber shoes. Despite his infirmities his smile was always bright and his tongue ready with a witticism.
When Jekyll asked him why he had never married, the response came in verse—
“Should I seek Hymen’s tie?As a poet I die,Ye Benedicts mourn my distresses.For what little fameIs annexed to my name,Is derived fromRejected Addresses.”
“Should I seek Hymen’s tie?As a poet I die,Ye Benedicts mourn my distresses.For what little fameIs annexed to my name,Is derived fromRejected Addresses.”
“Should I seek Hymen’s tie?As a poet I die,Ye Benedicts mourn my distresses.For what little fameIs annexed to my name,Is derived fromRejected Addresses.”
“Should I seek Hymen’s tie?
As a poet I die,
Ye Benedicts mourn my distresses.
For what little fame
Is annexed to my name,
Is derived fromRejected Addresses.”
But we must return to the drawing-room in Seamore Place.
On the other side of the hostess, busily discussing a speech of Dan O’Connell, stood a dapper little man, rather languid in appearance, but with winning, prepossessing manners, and a playful, ready tongue; Henry Bulwer. There were others, such as a German prince and a French duke and a famous traveller. And—there was D’Orsay, a host in himself in both senses of the word, the best-looking, best-dressed, most fortunate man in the room; yet despite it all—there he sat in a careless attitude upon an ottoman.
It was nearly twelve o’clock, the witching hour, before Mr Lytton Bulwer (“Pelham”)was announced, who ran gaily up to his hostess, and was greeted with a cordial chorus of “How d’ye, Bulwer?” Gay, quick, partly satirical, his conversation was fresh and buoyant. A dandy, too!
Toward three o’clock i’ the morn James Smith made a move and Willis his exit.
In June 1834, Willis dined at Seamore Place, the hour appointed being the then unusually late one of eight o’clock. Again the company, who were awaiting the arrival of Tom Moore, was of mingled nationalities—a Russian count, an Italian banker, an English peer, Willis an American, and for host and hostess, a French count and an Irish peeress. Lady Blessington took the lead—so says Willis, and he should know for he was there, lucky dog—in the war of witty words that waged round the dinner-table, and we may be sure that D’Orsay was not among the hindmost.
The talk was turned by Moore upon duelling—
“They may say what they will of duelling; it is the great preserver of the decencies of society. The old school, which made a man responsible for his words, was the better. I must confess I think so.” He then told an amusing story of an Irishman—of all men on earth!—who “refused a challenge on account of the illness of his daughter,” and one of the Dublin wits made a good epigram on the two—
“Some men, with a horror of slaughter,Improve on the Scripture command;And ‘honour their’—wife and their daughter—‘That their days may be long in the land.’”
“Some men, with a horror of slaughter,Improve on the Scripture command;And ‘honour their’—wife and their daughter—‘That their days may be long in the land.’”
“Some men, with a horror of slaughter,Improve on the Scripture command;And ‘honour their’—wife and their daughter—‘That their days may be long in the land.’”
“Some men, with a horror of slaughter,
Improve on the Scripture command;
And ‘honour their’—wife and their daughter—
‘That their days may be long in the land.’”
The “two” being the gentleman above referred to, and O’Connell, who had pleaded his wife’s illness as an excuse upon a similar occasion.
“The great period of Ireland’s glory,” continued Moore, “was between ’82 and ’98, and it was a time when a man almost lived with a pistol in his hand. Grattan’s dying advice to his son was: ‘Be always ready with the pistol!’ He himself never hesitated a minute.”
This we must take as a mere spark from the coruscations of brilliancy that fell from the lips of the beautiful hostess and her clever guests, from whom she had the art of drawing their best.
Coffee was served in the drawing-room. Moore was persuaded to sing. Singing always to his own accompaniment and in a fashion that more nearly approached to recitation than to ordinary singing, Moore was possessed of peculiar gifts in the arousing of the emotions of his hearers, and accounted any performance a failure that did not receive the award of tears. On this occasion, after two or three songs chosen by Lady Blessington, his fingers wandered apparently aimlessly over the keys for a while, and then with poignant pathos he sang—
“When first I met thee, warm and young,There shone such truth about thee,And on thy lip such promise hung,I did not dare to doubt thee.I saw thee change, yet still relied,Still clung with hope the fonder,And thought, though false to all beside,From me thou could’st not wander.But go, deceiver! go—The heart, whose hopes could make itTrust one so false, so low,Deserves that thou should’st break it.”
“When first I met thee, warm and young,There shone such truth about thee,And on thy lip such promise hung,I did not dare to doubt thee.I saw thee change, yet still relied,Still clung with hope the fonder,And thought, though false to all beside,From me thou could’st not wander.But go, deceiver! go—The heart, whose hopes could make itTrust one so false, so low,Deserves that thou should’st break it.”
“When first I met thee, warm and young,There shone such truth about thee,And on thy lip such promise hung,I did not dare to doubt thee.I saw thee change, yet still relied,Still clung with hope the fonder,And thought, though false to all beside,From me thou could’st not wander.But go, deceiver! go—The heart, whose hopes could make itTrust one so false, so low,Deserves that thou should’st break it.”
“When first I met thee, warm and young,
There shone such truth about thee,
And on thy lip such promise hung,
I did not dare to doubt thee.
I saw thee change, yet still relied,
Still clung with hope the fonder,
And thought, though false to all beside,
From me thou could’st not wander.
But go, deceiver! go—
The heart, whose hopes could make it
Trust one so false, so low,
Deserves that thou should’st break it.”
Then when the last note had died away, he said “Good-night” to his hostess, and before the silence was otherwise broken—was gone.
Dizzy was party to a famous duel which did not come off, consequent on fiery language used by O’Connell, who courteously rated him thus: “He is the most degraded of his species and his kind, and England is degraded in tolerating and having on the face of her society a miscreant of his abominable, foul and atrocious nature. His name shows that he is by descent a Jew. They were once the chosen people of God. There were miscreants amongst them, however, also, and it must certainly have been from one of these that Disraeli descended. He possesses just the qualities of the impenitent thief that died upon the cross, whose name I verily believe must have been Disraeli.”
Dizzy put himself in D’Orsay’s hands, but the latter thought that it would scarcely be becoming for a foreigner to be mixed up in a political duel, though he consented to “stage-manage” the affair, which never came off, owing to O’Connell’s oath never again to fight a duel.
D’Orsay was exceedingly ingenious in drawing out the peculiarities of any eccentric with whom he came in contact, among his principal butts being M. Julien le Jeune de Paris, as he dubbed himself; he had played his smallpart in the French Revolution and had been employed by Robespierre. This queer old gentleman had perpetrated a considerable quantity of fearful poetry, portions of which it was his delight to recite. These effusions he called “Mes Chagrins,” and carried about with him written out upon sheets of foolscap, which peeped out modestly from the breast-pocket of his coat. It was D’Orsay’s delight when M. Julien visited Seamore Place to induce him to recite a “Chagrin,” the doing of which reduced the old man to tears of sorrow and the listeners to tears of laughter. One evening a large party was assembled, among whom were M. Julien, James Smith, Madden, and Dr Quin, a physician whom young Mathews describes as “The ever genial Dr Quin … inexhaustible flow of fun and good-humour.” D’Orsay gravely begged Julien to oblige the company, and overcame his assumed reluctance, by the appeal—
“N’est ce pas Madden vous n’avez jamais entendu les Chagrins politiques de notre cher ami, Monsieur Julien?”
“Jamais,” Madden stammered out, stifling a laugh.
“Allons, mon ami,” D’Orsay continued, turning again to his victim, “ce pauvre Madden a bien besoin d’entendre vos Chagrins politiques—il a les siens aussi—il a souffert—lui—il a des sympathies pour les blessés, il faut lui donner ce triste plaisir—n’est ce pas, Madden?”
“Oui,” gurgled Madden.
Then the funereal fun began. Julien plantedhimself at the upper end of the room, near to a table upon which some wax candles were burning, and drew forth his “Chagrins” from his breast. Lady Blessington seated herself at his left hand, gazing solicitously into his face; at his other hand stood D’Orsay, ever and anon pressing his handkerchief to his eyes, and turning at one of the saddest moments to Madden, and whispering, “Pleurez donc!”
Quin, looking amazingly youthful, made his appearance during a particularly melting “Chagrin,” wherein the author, supposed to be in chase of capricious happiness, exclaimed:—
“Le bonheur! le voilà!Ici! Ici! La! La!En haut, en bas! En bas!”
“Le bonheur! le voilà!Ici! Ici! La! La!En haut, en bas! En bas!”
“Le bonheur! le voilà!Ici! Ici! La! La!En haut, en bas! En bas!”
“Le bonheur! le voilà!
Ici! Ici! La! La!
En haut, en bas! En bas!”
The doctor entered into the spirit of the affair, and whenever D’Orsay acclaimed any passage, would chime in with “Magnifique!” “Superbe!” “Vraiment beau!”
The recital ended as usual in a flood of tears.
But D’Orsay was not yet contented, but must be further plaguing the tearful old gentleman. He whispered mysteriously to him, drawing his attention to Quin and James Smith.
“Ah! Que c’est touchant!” exclaimed Julien. “Ah! mon Dieu! Ce tendre amour filial comme c’est beau! comme c’est touchant!”
Then D’Orsay went up to Quin, and to his amazement said—
“Allez, mon ami, embrassez votre père! Embrassez le, mon pauvre enfant,” then added,pointing to Smith, who was holding out his arms, “C’est toujours comme ça, toujours comme ça, ce pauvre garçon—avant le monde il a honte d’embrasser son père.”
Quin took the cue; jumped from his chair, and flung himself violently in Smith’s arms, nearly upsetting the gouty old gentleman. Locked in each other’s arms, they exclaimed—“Oh, fortunate meeting! Oh, happy reconciliation! Oh, fond father! Oh, affectionate son!” while D’Orsay stood beside them overwhelmed with emotion, Julien equally and really affected, sobbing, gasping, and exclaiming—
“Ah! Mon Dieu! Que c’est touchant! Pauvre jeune homme! Pauvre père!”
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Seamore Place
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Lord William Pitt Lennox first met Louis Napoleon at Seamore Place, also the Countess Guiccioli:—
“My first acquaintance with Napoleon,” he says, “was at an evening party at the Countess of Blessington’s, in Seymour Place. On arriving there my attention was attracted to two individuals, whom I had never previously seen. The one was a lady, who appeared to have numbered nearly forty years, with the most luxuriant gold-coloured hair, blue eyes and fresh complexion, that I ever saw. The other a gentleman, who, from the deference paid him, was evidently a distinguished foreigner. Before I had time to ascertain the name of the latter, a friend remarked: ‘How handsome the Guiccioli is looking this evening!’
“‘Splendidly,’ I replied, as the idea flashed across my mind that theincognitamust beByron’s ‘fair-haired daughter of Italia,’ Teresa Gamba, Countess Guiccioli. ‘Do you know Madame Guiccioli?’ I asked.
“‘Yes,’ responded my companion; ‘I met her at Venice, and shall be delighted to present you.…’”
“While conversing with the Guiccioli, Count d’Orsay approached us, and, apologising for his intrusion, said that Prince Louis Napoleon was anxious to be introduced to me, with a view to thanking me for my kind advice. Accordingly, I took leave of madame, but not before I had received her permission to call upon her at Sablonière’s Hotel, in what the ordinary frequenters of Leicester Square call ‘le plus beau quartier de Londres.’”
The advice referred to had come in a round-about way to Louis Napoleon, and had reference to the projected duel with Léon.[10]
What manner of man was D’Orsay at this period of his life, when he was treading so gaily the primrose way of pleasure as a man about London town? What were his claims to the reputation he gained as a dandy and a wit? How did he appear to his contemporaries?
That he was generally liked and by many looked on with something approaching to affection there is ample evidence to prove. Was ever a social sinner so beloved? Was dandy ever so trusted?
He was strikingly handsome in face and figure, of that his portraits assure us. One enthusiast tells us: “He was incomparably the handsomest man of his time … uniting to a figure scarcely inferior in the perfection of its form to that of Apollo, a head and face that blended the grace and dignity of the Antinous with the beaming intellect of the younger Bacchus, and the almost feminine softness and beauty of the Ganymede.”
He was an adept in the mysteries of the toilet, as careful of his complexion as a professionalbelle; revelling in perfumed baths; equipped with an enormous dressing-case fitted in gold, as became the prince of dandies, which he carried everywhere, though it took two men to lift it.
As to clothes, he led the fashion by the nose,and led it whithersoever he wished. He indulged in extravagances, which he knew his reputation and his figure could carry off, and then laughed to see his satellites and toadies making themselves ridiculous by adopting them. His tailor, Herr Stultz, is reported to have proudly described himself as “Tailor to M. le Comte d’Orsay,” full well knowing that the recommendation of mere royalty could carry no such weight. Where D’Orsay led the way all men of fashion must follow. Indeed, it was said that D’Orsay was fully aware of the value of his patronage, and that he expected his tailors to express substantial gratitude for it. When clothes arrived at Seamore Place, in the most mysterious manner banknotes had found their way into their pockets. Once when this accident had not happened, D’Orsay bade his valet return the garment with the message that “the lining of the pockets had been forgotten.”
The ordinary man, as regards his costume, takes care about the main points and permits the details to take care of themselves. Not so your true dandy. Thus we find D’Orsay writing to Banker Moritz Feist at Frankfort: “Will you send me a dozen pair of gloves colour ‘feuille-morte,’ such as they have on sale at the Tyrolean glove shops? They ought to fit your hand (that’s a compliment!), and (this is a fib!) I’ll send along the cash.”
D’Orsay was sometimes quite unkind when friends spoke to him on the subject of some new garment he was sporting.
Gronow meeting D’Orsay one day arrayed ina vest of supreme originality, exclaimed: “My dear Count, you really must give me that waistcoat.”
“Wiz pleasure, Nogrow,”—the Count’s comical misrendering of Gronow’s name—“but what shall you do wiz him? Aha! he shall make you an dressing-gown.”
What the Count could carry off would have extinguished the less-distinguished Gronow.
In Hyde Park, at the happy hour when all “the world” assembled there, some driving, some riding, some strolling, some leaning on the railings and quizzing the passers-by, D’Orsay was to be seen in all his glory. An afternoon lounge in the Park was as delightful then as it is nowadays.
To quote Patmore:—
“See! what is this vision of the age of chivalry, that comes careering towards us on horseback, in the form of a stately cavalier, than whom nothing has been witnessed in modern times more noble in air and bearing, more splendid in person, moredistinguéin dress, more consummate in equestrian skill, more radiant in intellectual expression, and altogether more worthy and fitting to represent one of those knights of the olden time, who warred for truth and beauty, beneath the banner of Cœur de Lion. It is Count D’Orsay.”
This language is as dazzling as the vision itself must have been!
Writing of various fashions in horsemanship, Sidney says:—
“As late as 1835 it was the fashion for the swells or dandies of the period—Count d’Orsay, the Earl of Chesterfield, and their imitators—totittup along the streets and in the Park with their toes just touching the stirrups, which hung three inches lower than in the hunting-field.”
Abraham Hayward rode in the Park with D’Orsay in March 1838, “to the admiration of all beholders, for every eye is sure to be fixed upon him, and the whole world was out, so that I began to tremble for my character.”
Here is another contemporary account, which deals rather with the outer habit than with knight-like man:—
“From the colour and tie of the kerchief which adorned his neck, to the spurs ornamenting the heels of his patent boots, he was the original for countless copyists, particularly and collectively. The hue and cut of his many faultless coats, the turn of his closely-fitting inexpressibles, the shade of his gloves, the knot of his scarf, were studied by the motley multitude with greater interest and avidity than objects more profitable and worthy of their regard, perchance, could possibly hope to obtain. Nor did the beard that flourished luxuriantly upon the delicate and nicely-chiselled features of the Marquis (Count) escape the universal imitation. Those who could not cultivate their scanty crops into the desirable arrangement, had recourse to art and stratagem to supply the natural deficiency.”
D’Orsay was indeed the Prince of the Dandies, it might be more truthfully said, the Tyrant. What he did and wore, they must do and wear; the cut of his coat and the cut of his hair, the arrangement of his tie—the Prince could do nowrong. Of this sincere form of flattery a comical tale is told. Riding back to town one day, as usual capitally mounted, D’Orsay was overtaken by a downpour of rain. The groom, who usually carried an overcoat for his master, had this day forgotten to bring it. D’Orsay was equal to this as to most occasions. He spied a sailor who wore a long, heavy waistcoat which kept him snug.
“Hullo, friend,” called out D’Orsay, pulling up, “would you like to go into that inn and drink to my health until the rain’s over?”
The sailor was naturally enough somewhat surprised, and asked D’Orsay why he was chaffing him.
“I’m not,” said D’Orsay, dismounting and going into the inn, followed by the sailor, “but I want your vest, sell it me.”
He took out and offered the poor devil ten guineas, assuring him at the same time that he “could buy another after the rain was over.”
D’Orsay put on the vest over his coat, buttoned it from top to bottom, remounted and rode on to town.
The rain passed over, the sun came out again, and as it was the proper hour to show himself in Hyde Park, D’Orsay showed himself.
“How original! How charming! How delicious!” cried the elegant dandies, astonished by D’Orsay’s new garment, “only a D’Orsay could have thought of such a creation!”
The next day dandies similarly enveloped were “the thing,” and thus the paletot was invented.
An anecdote is told, with what authority or want of it we do not know, by the Comtesse deBasanville, bearing upon D’Orsay’s good nature. One day out riding he stopped at an inn, took out a cigar, and was going to call out for a light, when a lad who came out of the tavern, offered him the match with which he had been going to light his own pipe. D’Orsay, who was struck by the boy’s politeness and good looks, began to chat with him.
“From what country do you come?”
“From Wales, my lord.”
“And you don’t mind leaving your mountains for the smoky streets of London?”
“I’d go back without minding at all,” answered the boy, “but poor folk can’t do what they want, and God knows when I’ll be going back to my old mother who’s crying and waiting for me.”
“You’re ambitious then?”
“I want to get bread. I’m young and strong, and work’s better paid in London than at home. That’s why I’ve come.”
“Well,” said D’Orsay, “I’d like to help you make your fortune. Here’s a guinea for your match. To-morrow, come to Hyde Park when the promenade is full; bring with you a box of matches, and when you see me with a lot of people round me, come up and offer me your ware.”
Naturally enough the boy turned up at the right hour and the right place.
“Who’ll buy my matches,” he called out.
“Aha! It’s you,” said D’Orsay. “Give me one quick to light my cigar.”
Another guinea—and the Count said carelessly to those grouped around him—
“Just imagine, that I couldn’t smoke a cigarwhich is not lit with one of this boy’s matches—others seem to me horrible.”
No sooner hinted than done; off went the matches and down came the guineas, and addresses even were given for delivery of a further supply.
Even if this story be not true, it is characteristic.
One other story of his power.
A certain peer quarrelled violently with him; result, a duel. It was pointed out to the unfortunate gentleman that if D’Orsay fought with him it would become the fashion to do so! When D’Orsay heard of his adversary’s urgent reason for wishing not to meet him, he agreed readily that it was reasonable, and the affair was arranged. D’Orsay laughingly added: “It’s lucky I’m a Frenchman and don’t suffer from the dumps. If I cut my throat, to-morrow there’d be three hundred suicides in London, and for a time at any rate the race of dandies would disappear.”
By Greville we are informed that D’Orsay was “tolerably well-informed,” which surely must be the judgment of jealousy.
In manner and habits D’Orsay grew to be thoroughly English, no small feat, while retaining all the vivacity,joie de vivre, and “little arts” of the Frenchman. But he does not seem ever to have acquired a perfect English accent; Willis in 1835 says of him, he “still speaks the language with a very slight accent, but with a choice of words that shows him to be a man of uncommon tact and elegance of mind.” The language andthe waistcoats of those dandy days were alike flowery.
It is difficult to decide, the evidence being scanty, whether or not D’Orsay was a wit of eminence, or a mere humorist. Chorley the musical critic, or rather the critic of music, said that his wit “was more quaint than anything I have heard from Frenchmen (there are touches of like quality in Rabelais), more airy than the brightest London wit of my time, those of Sydney Smith and Mr Fonblanque not excepted.” It was a kindly wit, too, which counts for grace. It is not unlikely that the broken English which he knew well how to use to the best advantage helped to add a sense of comicality to remarks otherwise not particularly amusing; just as Lamb found his stammer of assistance.
A little wit carried off with a radiant manner goes a long way, and we are inclined to believe that D’Orsay on account of his good-humoured chaff and laughing impertinences gained a reputation for a higher wit than he really possessed. True wit raises only a smile, sometimes a rather wry one; humour forces us to break out into laughter such as apparently usually accompanied D’Orsay’s sallies. The following is preserved for us by Gronow, who held that D’Orsay’s conversation was original and amusing, but “more humour andà proposthan actual wit.” Tom Raikes, whose face was badly marked by small-pox, for some reason or other, wrote D’Orsay an anonymous letter, and sealed it, using something like the top of a thimble for the purpose. D’Orsay foundout who was the writer of the epistle, and accosted him with—“Ha! ha! my good Raikes, the next time you write an anonymous letter, you must not seal it with your nose!”—looking at that pock-pitted organ. Which is more facetious than witty.
Here is another story of a somewhat similar character, kindly provided me by Mr Charles Brookfield:—“My father once met D’Orsay at breakfast. After the meal was over and the company were lounging about the fireplace, a singularly tactless gentleman of the name of Powell crept up behind the Count, and twitching suddenly a hair out of the back of his head exclaimed: ‘Excuse me, Count, one solitary white hair!’ D’Orsay contrived to conceal his annoyance, but bided his time. Very soon he found his chance and approaching Mr Powell he deliberately plucked a hair from his head, exclaiming, ‘Parrdon, Pow-ail, one solitaryblack’air.’”
Gronow also tells this. “Lord Allen, none the better for drink, was indulging in some rough rather than ready chaff at D’Orsay’s expense. When John Bush came in, d’Orsay greeted him cordially, exclaiming: ‘Voilà la différence entre une bonne bouche et une mauvaise haleine.’”
D’Orsay, Lord William Pitt Lennox and “King” Allen were invited to dinner at the house of a Jewish millionaire, and the first-named promised to call for the other two.
“We shall be late,” grumbled Allen. “You’re never in time, D’Orsay.”
“You shall see,” answered D’Orsay, unruffled, and drove off at a fine pace.
Even though they arrived in time Allen was not appeased, and grumbled at everything and everybody, and the cup of his wrath hopelessly overflowed when he overheard one of the servants saying to another:
“The gents are come.”
“Gents,” snorted Allen. “Gents! What a wretched low fellow! It’s worthy of a public-house!”
“I beg your pardon, Allen, it is quite correct. The man is a Jew. He means to say the Gentiles have arrived. Gent is the short for Gentile!”
Landor writes in June 1840: “I sat at dinner (at Gore House) by Charles Forester, Lady Chesterfield’s brother. In the last hunting season Lord Chesterfield, wanting to address a letter to him, and not knowing exactly where to find him, gave it to D’Orsay to direct it. He directed it—Charles Forester, one field before the hounds, Melton Mowbray. Lord Alvanley took it, and (he himself told me) gave it to him on the very spot.” Landor goes on to speak of meeting a lady who accosted him with: “Sure, Landor, it is a beautiful book, yourPeriwinkle and Asparagus!”
But surely the most delightful thing D’Orsay ever said was on the occasion of a visit of him to Lady Blessington’s publishers, whom he rated in high language.
“Count d’Orsay,” said a solemn personage in a high, white neckcloth, “I would sooner lose Lady Blessington’s patronage than submit to such personal abuse.”
“There is nothing personal,” retorted D’Orsay, suavely. “If you are Otley, then damn Saunders; if you are Saunders, then damn Otley.”
Edward Barrington de Fonblanque, nephew of Albany, records that D’Orsay was a capitalraconteur, with an inexhaustible stock of stories, which he retailed “in a manner irresistibly droll.” One of these anecdotes ran thus:—
Méhémet Ali asked of a Frenchman what was a republic.
The reply was—
“Si l’Egypte était une république, vous seriez le peuple et le peuple serait le Pacha.”
Méhémet responded that he could not summon up “aucun goût, aucune sympathie, pour une république.”
Madden says: “A mere report would be in vain, of thebons motshe uttered, without a faithful representation of his quiet, imperturbable manner—his arch look, the command of varied emphasis in his utterance, the anticipatory indications of coming drollery in the expression of his countenance—the power of making hisentourageenter into his thoughts, and his success in prefacing hisjeux d’espritby significant glances and gestures, suggestive of ridiculous ideas.”
To turn to another essential of the equipment of a complete dandy, D’Orsay was an accomplishedgourmet. This gift must have added greatly to his usefulness in Lady Blessington’s establishment, where doubtless he was master of themenus. Other folk also availed themselves of his skill in this direction.
We quote from that staid depository of learning,The Quarterly Review, from an article published in 1835 and written by Abraham Hayward:—
“It seems allowed on all hands that a first-rate dinner in England is out of all comparison better than a dinner of the same class in any other country; for we get the best cooks, as we get the best singers and dancers, by bidding highest for them, and we have cultivated certain national dishes to a point which makes them the envy of the world. In proof of this bold assertion, which is backed, moreover, by the unqualified admission of Ude, we request attention to themenuof the dinner given in May last to Lord Chesterfield, on his quitting the office of Master of the Buckhounds, at the Clarendon. The party consisted of thirty; the price was six guineas a head; and the dinner was ordered by Comte d’Orsay, who stands without a rival amongst connoisseurs in this department of art:—